


Let The Boys All Sing And The Boys All Shout For Tomorrow

by Lunarrua



Category: Harry Styles - Fandom, nick grimshaw - Fandom
Genre: 1980s Aids Crisis, 1980s indie music, Alternate Universe - 1980s, Clubbing, Friendship/Love, HIV/AIDS, Hacienda, M/M, Madchester, Rave, Recreational Drug Use, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-07-27 16:18:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16222769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarrua/pseuds/Lunarrua
Summary: And the public gets what the public wantsBut I want nothing this society's gotI'm going underground (going underground)Well the brass bands play and feet start to poundGoing underground (going underground)-Going Underground, The JamIt's February 1988. Thatcher is in power. There's a new drug sweeping through the clubbing scene. In Manchester, it's the eve of a major protest and a new musical movement. And when Nick finds Harry looking lost outside his favourite chip shop, it's the start of a weekend that will leave an indelible mark on both their lives.





	1. Thursday, 18th February, 1988

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jiksa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jiksa/gifts).



> \- in humble and totally inadequate thanks for your wonderful writing. Sorry this isn’t one of your prompts but this one’s been building in my head since a certain photo did the rounds. 
> 
> Huge thank you to [ferryboatpeak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferryboatpeak/pseuds/ferryboatpeak) for beta-ing! (And btw go read their Harry Styles/Tom Glynn-Carney/Ben and Meredith Winston summer babysitting fic and have your life changed forever!)

There’s a huge, shiny Bentley, its bumper dented and front tyre deflated, left halfway across the footpath in front of Nick. It’s parked up all skew-ways and haphazard, like someone had to abandon it in the middle of some kind of frantic, heroic dash to save a life. But in this part of Manchester - given the general infrequency of Bentley sightings - Nick reckons the car has probably been stolen. And if there was any life-saving dashing going on, it was likely the _running-away-from-the-coppers_ kind.

He hunches into the fur collar of his denim jacket and steps onto the street to by-pass the car. A passing taxi beeps at him. _Yeah, yeah. Go ahead and show us how you like to fondle your own horn, dear. Good for you._

He’s tired. He’s been pushing Section 28 protest flyers into the hands of shop and cafe owners all day, smiling blithely through their embarrassed flustering. It's the last time he's letting Annie guilt-trip him into stuff like this. He is definitely against this Tory effort to ban the "promotion of homosexuality" obviously, but he's just not a _getting involved_ kind of person, really. He's more of a _make everyone come out to get shitfaced and dance until no one's bothered anymore_ kind of person. It involves less shouting. Sometimes.

  
  
  


The grey February skies are darkening now and a scent of hot oil, fried onions, salty savouriness drifts towards Nick on the chilly evening breeze. Down the other end of the street is the city’s best chippie, as far as Nick’s concerned. His stomach growls. His cheekbones have acquired a new sharpness lately that’s caused Aimee to yell at him more than once. It’s just that there’s so much he’s been trying to not think about these days, sometimes eating gets caught up in the tide of it all. At least, that’s what he thinks might be happening.

Beside him, where’s she’s been his best little soldier all day, Pig picks up speed, her short little tail wagging enthusiasm. Nick’s mouth starts to salivate and he decides, for once, he’s in no mood to wait for his supper.

Then Nick sees the young man leaning against the chippie window and salivation becomes a multi-faceted thing. 

He’s remarkably beautiful, is the thing, this chap. And he’s impeccably turned out in a three-piece suit that has to have been personally tailored, given the perfect fit. There’s a weird green plaid shawl draped over his shoulders that _should_ , but doesn’t, detract from his handsomeness. He’s all buttoned up with one of those elite school neck-ties tightened to his throat, signet rings glinting on his fingers. His hair is dark and slightly in need of a cut - not slicked back with gel like all those city guys are wearing it these days. It’s soft, just like his expression - an absent, wistful gaze into space. 

He looks unearthly. 

And utterly, disgustingly, _filthily_ rich.

“Hiya,” Nick says, as he passes. Because, despite everything, it appears he is still incapable of not engaging with any irrationally handsome young man in his vicinity.

The man startles, blinking out from his reverie and accidentally drops a chip from the bag he’s holding. From nowhere, a chicken with glossy, auburn feathers swoops to battle a wiry-haired, spindly-legged terrier for it. The chicken wins. The dog stands, head drooping despondently, staring at the chicken peck the chip to bits.

Pig, who had come to an uncharacteristic standstill to watch the scene, glances back up at Nick, stunned.

 _Yeah_ , Nick silently tells her, _I don’t understand either_.

“Oh … hello,” the man says back, still looking distracted. And then he does a double-take. “Oh, it’s you!”

Nick looks from the chicken to the dog to the man and back again. He’d said “hello” like “ _hey-leow_ ”, Nick’s pretty sure he’s never met anyone so cut-glass in real life before.

“Yes,” he says hesitantly, “it’s me. Do we know each other then?”

“Uh,” the boy frowns, “no, actually, we don’t. Sorry.”

And he looks suddenly so crushed, all dejected and sad, that Nick can’t help asking, “You all right, love?”

Surprise flickers across his expression. Then he sighs quietly. When looks back at Nick, with wide green eyes that don’t seem to have been engineered to blink, it’s like he’s making some kind of silent appeal.

“That your’s then?” Nick gestures behind him at the Bentley, because who else could own it? “Had a bit of a swerve, did you? Never mind. Happens to the best of us." 

The boy keeps gaping at him, all forlorn and lost. And Nick's not one for silences - comfortable or otherwise - so he keeps talking, unable to stop.

"Tipped my Mum’s car on it’s side last year, when a cat ran out in front of me. Had the fire brigade out and everything. The bloody cat sat there after, definitely laughing at the lot of us. Not a sympathetic animal, are they, cats? Never mind, though, eh? It's only a car. Just a lump of metal at the end of the day.”

“I just don’t …” the boy starts to say eventually, “I don’t know what to do …”

And well, that’s just heart-melting, that is. Nick opens and shuts his mouth a few times, at a loss for words for the first time ever, just about.

The guy shudders a bit suddenly. A blush spreads across his face, like he’s just realised how pathetic he’d sounded.

“I suppose I better get someone out for the car,” he says hesitantly in that posh accent, looking at Nick as if for confirmation. “Do you know, perhaps, if there’s anywhere around here that would permit me to use a phone?”

Nick bites at his bottom lip. 

_This isn’t my fault_ , he silently whispers upwards before saying, “I’ve got a phone, if you like.”

“Really?!” The young man’s expression shifts into a wide, sweet smile, and Nick feels like the sun has suddenly dissolved this cold, grey February day into something golden and glowing.

“I’m Nick,” he tells him, weakly.

“Harry.” He stretches his hand out, still smiling beatifically at Nick, “Harry Styles. Delighted...”

  
  
  
  


In Nick’s house, Harry’s suddenly taking up all the space in the kitchen, despite having looked quite slight before. The animals take up a lot of room too - back at the chippie, after Harry clicked his fingers at the dog and tucked up the chicken under his arm, Nick suddenly realised his invitation was entailing a multi-species gathering.

"Let's put them outside for a bit, shall we?" Nick suggests. That chicken's got a bright, beady-eyed way of looking at him that's reminding Nick of Mrs Spencer - his 4th form french teacher. Makes him nervous. 

Nick leads the dogs through to the small back yard where Pig immediately trots about picking up various dog toys and dropping them in front of Harry’s dog, Artemesia, tail waggling with pride. Harry hands over the chicken from the doorway. It starts flapping flusteredly when Nick touches it and all he can think is - _Just don't shit on me, please don't shit on me_ \- as he crosses the yard to set her down gently into the flower bed. She shrugs him off, with what looks very like an expression of disdain, and then she snuggles down under the nasturtiums, blinks and drops her head.

  
  
  


When Nick comes back inside, Harry’s moved from the kitchen into the little sitting room. He’s a fidgety type - drifting about picking things up and putting them back in the wrong place. There’s something distracted and unfocused about the way he moves, like he’s slightly surprised to find himself in a material world. He’s hardly spoken at all.Through the doorway, Nick sees him run a finger down along the cassettes that are stacked beside the ghetto-blaster. In his other hand, he’s still holding his chip-bag, grease stains blooming in the tight grip of his white-knuckled fingers. 

“How do you take your tea?” Nick calls, his voice echoing dully around him due to him having stuck his head and shoulders into the delph cupboard, clattering everything around in there. There’s a few remaining pieces of his Gran’s old Wedgwood somewhere under all the BHS crockery that now seem much too chunky and inelegant to produce.

“Oh, black would be splendid, thank you. That’s very kind of you.”

 _Splendid_. Nick’s only got _PG Tip_ s in. He’s not sure how he’s going to elevate this chip tea to _splendid_.

He looks around the interior of the cupboard surrounding his head. He probably could fit the rest of himself in there, if he elbowed all the crockery onto the floor. It’s an option.

“Phone’s in the hall. Yellow Pages in the top drawer of the thingummy,” Nick tells the wood at the back of the cupboard.

He doesn’t hear anything happening in response, and when he brings in the tea things - on a tray! - with a plate of soft, buttered bread to make butties, Harry is still standing by the cassettes - he’s opened the cover of one and is examining it closely.

“This is a good mix tape. I like this. Who’s Douglas?” he asks, holding up the cover - Nick’s slanting lettering listing the tracks - Thompson Twins, Tears for Fears, Prince, Culture Club…

Nick turns quickly away. He’d been so careful about that tape - chosen each song because of the way it seemed to encapsulate one aspect or another of his beautiful New Wave boy. Seeing it held so casually in a stranger’s hand … it’s jarring, like being doused in ice-water.

“Oh,” Nick hesitates, “he was my … uh … friend.”

Nick swallows hard. He’s not quite sure yet, but he’s been getting - not quite a vibe - but just a flickering sense from Harry, that they might have more in common than not. But then, with those posh boys you never can be sure. He’d only been sure about Douglas when he’d pushed Nick up against a wall behind the Flamingo and smiled a filthy smirk, sinking down on his knees in front of him.

Nick sees Harry’s green eyes searching his expression, and decides he’ll just say it. Fuck it. It’s his house. Harry can leave if he doesn’t like it.

“He was sort of my boyfriend, actually. Until recently.”

Harry smiles softly, nods at Nick and goes back to reading the track listing.

Nick feels himself exhale. You never really know how that’s going to go.

There was that barman, earlier today. He had grabbed a flyer from Nick, eyeballed him as he crumpled it in his fist before flinging it back into Nick’s face, loudly declaring Nick to be a disease-carrying pervert who needed to be electrocuted via his balls. The customers had all cheered when Nick told that barman he could recommend him a Club down the village if he was into that kind of thing, but Nick still thought it wise to scarper when the man’s eyeballs flared red.

Some wild feeling takes hold of Nick then. It’s probably because of the day he’s had, being all out and unapologetic and that. It’s obviously a dangerous habit because he keeps talking.

“He … died. Douglas did. That big disease with the little name …”

The lyric is from one of the songs on the mix tape. Seems like Harry should get the reference.

Nick watches Harry face flush then go pale. He snaps shut the cassette cover and sticks it back onto the pile of tapes. _Douglas’ Songs_ are back on the top of the stack again. On top of _Henry’s Songs, Nicco’s Songs, Paul’s Songs_. Harry drops his chip bag onto the coffee table and shoves his hands into his pockets and backs away. 

_You can’t catch it that way, pet_. Nick manages to keep the thought unspoken. He should have said nowt, shouldn’t he?

“I’m sorry. For your uh … loss. I’ll just …” Harry’s avoiding Nick’s eyes, suddenly. His expression has darkened to a deep frown as he thumbs over his shoulder at the door to into the hall, “… I suppose I ought to make that call, then. Phone’s out here? Is that all right?”

“Yeah,” Nick tells him. “You do that.”

The low evening light is spreading dark shadows through the slatted blinds, illuminating motes of dust floating in the air. Nick’s mum would criticise, if she saw them, he knows. _And you’ve guests in and everything, Nick!_ So he grabs the tea towel from the tray and starts to sweep at the dust. It swirls up into the late afternoon light, drifts about, a barely-there haze that surrounds him like a cloak. He can hear Harry’s deep voice on the phone in the hall and he clicks on the radio to drown it out. 

Nick pours himself a cuppa. Harry hangs up the phone and then there’s a long silence. Nick idly wonders if the lad might be considering doing a runner, but instead, when he looks up again, Harry’s quietly edged back into the room, and that he’s again the subject of that intensely searching gaze. Nick finds himself staring back, not sure what that look means or what he’s supposed to do about it. 

Then Harry smiles at him, slightly sheepishly, all eyes and dimples. 

And Jesus though. He’s pretty.

When in doubt - start with tea. 

Nick pours out a second cup and offers it to Harry. 

“Got everything all sorted, then?”

“Oh!”

Nick looks up at Harry’s exclamation of surprise. He’s tilted his head towards the radio as the choppy guitar of George Michael’s _Faith_ starts to spill into the air.

“This is a good song.” Harry’s smiles, nodding his head a bit to the music. Then he dips and sways a little to the beat.

Nick can’t help focusing in on the way his narrow hips are moving, but when he glances up at Harry’s face he finds he’s been caught rotten. 

Nick blinks in shock at the sudden sparkle in Harry’s eyes. 

“That video is mega, isn’t it?”

Then he shoots a glinting grin at Nick and whirls around, raising his arms over his head and claps in time to the beat, snapping his flannel-clad hips back and forth, his expression all mischief when he looks back over his shoulder at Nick.

 _“Baaaby,”_ he sings - loudly, suddenly so loud - _“I know you’re asking me to stay, Say please, please, please don’t go away. You say I’m giving you the blues …”_ Harry shakes his little tush about a bit more in front of Nick, strumming an invisible guitar. Like, right over the crotch of those closely tailored trousers.

“Hasn’t he just gotten so much sexier since he left Wham?” Harry says, fixing Nick with his unblinking gaze again. But this time it’s all gleaming amusement and Nick can’t help spluttering into laughter. _You little bugger_ , he thinks.

“I couldn’t possibly comment. Never notice things like that, me.”

Harry laughs and yells out another “ _Baaaby…_ ”

Nick holds out a cup.

“Drink your tea, young man.”

  
  
  
  
  


Now they’ve got music on, it turns out it’s remarkably easy to chat with Harry.

He’s all present now - laughs easily and focuses intently on everything Nick says like he’s the most entertaining person he’s ever met in his life. It’s ridiculous and Nick’s determined not to be flattered. Even after Harry tells him he listens to Nick on KFM. 

“I tape your show too,” Harry says, swallowing his last chip, under the watchful eyes of the dogs who were readmitted after scratching at the back door. “So when I’m out walking with my headphones on, or just, you know, alone, I can listen again. You have a way of … well … your voice is friendly. The way you all chat together in the studio. It’s like being with friends. Your show, I mean … It feels like … it’s just … good.”

Harry tells him all this without blinking. Just staring earnestly at Nick from across the coffee table and a wide, direct smile when he finishes talking.

Nick feels his forehead furrow.

“You didn’t, like, hurt yourself, did you? When you had your little tip in the car? Didn’t bang the old noggin’ or anything, did you?”

Harry cackles, throwing his head back and squeezing his knees. Then he bites back his lingering smile and lets his gaze drift over to the gas fire under the mantlepiece. Nick had clicked it on when the last traces of wintry daylight had fled the small room and now the flickering flames cast a yellowish sheen onto their skin.

“So, tell me, why do you have a chicken, Harry?” They’ve been talking for about an hour now. Nick feels it's an appropriate point to breach the topic.

Harry blinks rapidly at him, like he’s bringing him back into focus. “She’s my friend.”

“Really?”

“Yes!”

“What’s her name then?”

“Henrietta.”

Nick freezes and then snorts. “That’s terrible!”

Harry guffaws. “My seven-year-old brain thought that was very clever, actually.”

“You’ve had her since you were seven?!” Nick tries to calculate. “How long do chickens live anyway?”

Harry looks very serious again, pinching his bottom lip.

“She’s twelve now. She’s old. She doesn’t lay any more … so … Grandmother thinks it’s time …”

“Time for what?” Nick frowns.

Where he’s sitting on the sofa, Harry’s body sinks over his knees, like a deflating jack-in-the-box. “You know …” 

Harry has already stacked up their used cups and plates onto the tray but it doesn’t stop him suddenly sitting up, leaning over his knees and fidgeting them about. 

“My grandmother,” he starts, “she’s an incredible woman. Formidable. That’s the word everyone uses. It’s just …”

Nick finds himself frowning in puzzlement as Harry seems to shrink even more into the depths of the sofa cushions.

“It’s just … we’ve got this … It’s a farm, really, at the end of the day. That’s what I was always taught. It’s a working farm - the estate. Everything’s got to contribute. You see, we’ve got all these inheritance taxes and … anyway. No pets really.”

“Except Henrietta?” Nick prompts when Harry drifts off. 

“And Lacey,” Harry nods at him. “Lacey was my pony … well she was my sister’s, originally. She was supposed to learn to ride on her, but Lacey was pretty cranky. Bitey. After she nipped Gemma on the shoulder she ended up more or less left to her own devices in the north-west paddock. But I was sitting under the chestnut tree there once, and I was … well I was being a bit sad that day, and she just comes over and like …” Harry nudges his head at empty air a few times … “made me cheer up, I suppose. She didn’t like being ridden but she’d walk along beside me. Anytime I was sad, I’d just go rambling all over the estate and she’d come too. I don’t think she knew she was a pony, really. She’d just, like, rest her head on my shoulder and let me talk to her.”

Ponies? Paddocks? Nick keeps his expression blank even while he digests all this. So he’s got a poor little rich boy on his hands, it seems. It’s Douglas all over again. 

“Anyway, she got colic.” Harry sighs shortly. “So … Grandmother had her shot.”

Nick blinks in shock. “Jesus.”

“She wasn’t productive. No point in getting the vet out for her, Grandmother said. And now Artie. Well, she’s always been a bit useless, to be honest, but now, on the shoots, she’s just collecting pine cones instead of the game. She’s so sweet but she’s a silly dog. And Henrietta just wants to sleep all the time, now. So, I just …” 

Harry takes a breath but it’s a shuddering kind of one. 

“Sorry! I probably shouldn’t be saying all this ... It probably sounds mad.”

Nick frowns at Harry’s sudden blush. He shakes his head. “Can’t cost all that much to feed a chicken, though, can it? Or what, is she fussy? Is she all, like, colour-sorted M&Ms and peeled grapes? Has she a taste for Russian caviar, or summit? Is she a high maintenance chicken?”

Harry smiles - “No, she’s pecky, not picky.”

Nick clutches at his chest, “Oh no Harry, that was … not good …”

Harry cackles, squeezing his knees as he leans back to laugh. Nick can’t help grinning at him. 

“No, it … it’s more the principle. She’s very principled, my Grandmother. It’s very … admirable… really. That’s what everyone says.”

Nick feels his smile fade. He’s about had it with people and their “principles”. It was “principles” that shut the coal mines. It’s “principles” that put that bomb in Enniskillen last year. It’s “principles” that’ll force gay people underground if this Section 28 thing gets passed.

He cups Artemsia’s head in his hand, scratching behind her ears until she goes lax and flops onto the floor, rolling over to expose her belly. 

Pig’s jealousy gets the better of her and she abandons her spot at Harry’s feet to scramble up Nick’s body, licking his face. He yields to her emotional blackmail, and scootches down onto the carpet between the dogs, each of them stretched lengthwise against his legs while he scratches at their tummies.

When he looks up, Harry is watching him with a soft smile and a glazed sadness in his eyes. 

“I … sometimes I think … it can’t be wrong, can it? To want to keep things around even when they aren’t quite … useful? Like, isn’t it OK, sometimes, to just be kind?”

Gradually that soft, dazed expression from earlier sinks back over Harry’s face and he seems to drift off away somewhere inside his head. 

“So,” Nick says, after a minute, “I’m hosting a bunch of runaways, then, am I?”

“Fugitives. That’s us,” Harry nods without looking up. “Life and death at stake, really … I … I can’t go back …”

Nick bites his bottom lip. 

“Well then …” he starts. He thinks of his own Gran, her wide, warm lap and soft skin. She was always good at stuff like this. And she always said, _well then_ , and somehow everything seemed in hand, all sorted and under control.

Nick’s _well then_ is more of a wild plea to the benevolent powers of the universe for assistance.

“I’ve got this lemon liquor thing in the cupboard my mate Pixie brought back from Greece last year. D’you want some of that?” Nick suddenly finds himself saying. Well then. It’s the best he can come up with in the circumstances.

Harry perks up.

“Do you think it might help? Maybe? With the shock? I _did_ have a car crash after all?”

“Ermmm … Well, I guess we could see?”

“We could!” Harry looks brighter again. “We should see, Nicholas.”

  
  
  
  
  


They have too many limoncello shots, too fast, and by the time Top of the Pops comes on they’re both a bit giddy - making the dogs dance on their hind legs with them, calling out chart positions before they’re announced.

Then Harry falls off the sofa laughing at Nick’s Kylie impression, and Nick doesn’t tell him he wasn’t aiming for comedy actually and goes with it. They end up elbowing each other in the ribs trying to copy Tiffany’s moves and decide it’s best to take a break from dancing but then Sinead O’Connor comes on with _Mandinka_ and they both mosh about in front of the wide-eyed dogs until they can’t breathe.

Nick has no idea what’s got into him. But suddenly there’s no greater reward in the universe than making those dimples in Harry’s cheeks pop. Nick’s slightly ashamed of himself. He’d really thought he was over all this, doing things like this. It’s not dignified for a man of his circumstances, probably.

Somewhere in the middle of it all, the doorbell rings and the man from the garage comes to collect Harry's car keys. It's too late for him to do any work on the car now, he says, they're just closing up. So Nick immediately offers Harry his sofa for the night, and that makes Harry smile even more broadly and that's brill, that is.

Harry's still grinning as he helps Nick sort out a mix for his booking that night.

“The Hacienda? That’s a really big club, isn’t it?” Harry’s gaping at him, staggering a little. “That’s mega!”

“It’s only the wind-down slot. After the band. Fastest way to clear the room - put me on the decks,” Nick grins at him, slotting the LPs into his shoulder bag. “Reckon the whole place is on the brink of shutting down, actually. So serves them right. Should have appreciated my genius when they had the chance, shouldn’t they?”

“Still,” Harry leans forward and squeezes Nick’s arm. “Can I come? It’ll be brilliant. You are a brilliant jockey of discs.”

Nick cackles back at him. “Thanks love! Yeah! Come and let me show you off - my fan! I have a fan! At last. Make sure you come up and ask for my autograph when everyone’s looking, yeah? Maybe you can convince Mike to start paying me in cash instead of beers while we’re at it.”

Harry’s face looks outraged, “What?! Get that tight-arse to pay up, lad! Tell him he don’t get owt for nowt in this life.” 

Nick folds onto his knees in laughter. 

“You sound right Northern! Where’d that come from?”

“Oh!” Harry slaps his hands over his mouth. “It's from spending all my time with the staff downstairs, when I was small. Then I got sent off for elocution lessons, didn’t I?” 

He leans into Nick to whisper conspiratorially, “Sometimes, when I have a drink, they wear off!”

“You know what?!” Harry’s face lights up again, and he grips Nick’s arm. “We should go now! Everyone’s sleeping here” - he gestures wildly at two dogs curled up on the mat - “it’s boring. And I’m on the run! I need to go and, like, blend in with the crowd. Hide in plain sight! What do you say?”

“Um… It’s a bit early for heading out …” 

Nick’s feeling a bit cloudy. There are probably reasons to be either pro or against this suggestion but he’s damned if he can think of any, either way.

“Or!!” Harry looks even more devilishly excited now, eyes flashing, and he squeezes Nick’s arm painfully tight, “we could go up to Canal Street, couldn’t we? I’ve never been … doesn’t it get raided sometimes? I saw in the papers. Isn’t that where that policeman said was “a cesspit”? Grandmother was appalled. Is it fun? We should see, yeah?”

He bites his bottom lip, a salacious gleam in his eyes. 

Nick pauses. He’s been avoiding the old haunts these days - too many missing faces.

“Ugh Harry, no, it’s well grim, there. All shuttered windows and secret knocks. Are you even twenty-one yet? I’m not going to be held responsible for corrupting your innocence. Anyway, look at you - you’ll get your head kicked in going out in Manchester looking like that. Haven’t you ever been clubbing before? Don’t see too many three-piece suits about, sweetheart.”

Harry frowns and wriggles out of his jacket and waistcoat. He rolls up his shirt sleeves and carefully undoes the top four shirt buttons. And then undoes another one.

“There.” 

He nods to down at the cleavage he’s exposed, satisfied, and Nick creases up again.

“This is going to be a disaster,” he says. 

  
  
  


The Thompson Arms is jammers already. Harry sticks close to Nick, hovering at his shoulder, wearing Nick’s baggy smiley-face t-shirt, as he trails him through the crowd. Nick had calculated that it was probably the safest place to take Harry, since it’s a decent end of town, and it’s gay if he wants gay, and now he’s thinking it was the right decision, because of how Harry’s eyes have widened again and how quiet he’s gotten. It’s reminding Nick of how Pig behaved for the first few weeks he adopted her from the shelter, when she’d been all clingy and unsettled and kept weeing all over his carpets.

“Loo’s are over there if you need them,” Nick points out for Harry. Just in case.

Annie’s at the decks in the corner and throws hands at him, beckoning him over. She brings up _Beat Dis_ through _S-Express_ and and Nick could throw her a parade because that’s just perfect, that is. 

“Don’t get comfortable,” she tells him as he squeezes in behind the desk with her, tucking his bag of records carefully underneath, “we’re moving on after this.”

“But darling, I’ve just arrived!" Nick strikes a pose. "The party’s only starting!”

She winks at him, and pulls out a little purse - opening a pocket to show Nick. Inside is a tumble of small white pills. Annie leans over to shout into his ear - “George and Pixie are back from Ibiza - they stocked up! They said these are the best buzz. I’m finishing here in a minute and then we’ll head over to Whitworth St, yeah?”

Nick makes a face at her, “I’m not on ‘till late. Wasn’t going to bother heading in until just before. You know that place gets manky on a Thursday -”

“Nick!” she squeezes at his arm, “It’s the Roses tonight! Don’t tell me you’re not up for it! They’re getting signed - did you hear? It’s going to be mega. Get one of those into you and grab whoever that pretty thing is, and lets get on it!”

She tips a couple of pills into Nick’s palm and bounces back to her decks, pulling up _Pump Up The Volume_.

“Sorted!” she calls back at him, beaming. 

But then she suddenly drops the volume and grabs a mic. Over the disappointed groans of the crowd, she yells - “Alright lads - everyone remember the protest is this weekend, yeah? 12 noon, Saturday! Albert Square. We will NOT let them silence us! We will NOT let them force us to hide! Get out and be loud and proud! We are NEVER going underground!!!”

There are a few weak cheers, and Nick can't fault the lack of enthusiasm because, to be fair, there's a time and place for giving a shit about being oppressed, and a Thursday night down _The Arms_ isn't it. Annie quickly ramps up the volume again and the room bounces back to the beat.

Nick edges out to where been Harry’s standing watching, biting at his lip. Nick wants those dimples back.

“What’s happening?” Harry asks.

“All of it, apparently,” Nick tells him, and then he shows Harry what he’s got in his hand.

Harry’s face lights up and looks up greedily. “What are they? Are they going to be fun?”

Nick closes his fist tight around the pills, and pulls at Harry’s sleeve, dragging him over to the corner. This is probably a bad idea. But why stop now?

“Have you ever done E before?” he asks.

Harry shakes his head.

“Just a half each, then, all right?” he tells Harry’s hopeful face. “And just water from now on, OK? No more alcohol. And stay with me. You’re probably going to think everyone is your new best friend in a bit, but they might not feel the same way. So don’t go wandering, OK?”

Harry’s smiling brightly and nodding urgently as Nick bites the pill and swallows his half. Harry sticks out his tongue, and for a second Nick’s tempted to put the remaining half on his own tongue and pass it to him that way, but he shakes away the urge. Drops it neatly from between his fingers instead. Harry still somehow manages to lick against Nick’s skin, a glancing touch of soft, wet, heat. And from the way he stands close after he’s swallowed, smirking, Nick’s not totally convinced it was an accident.

  
  
  
  
  


As they approach the Hacienda, they can hear the muffled throb of bass pulse through the red-brick walls.

Harry’s chewing gum frantically, his head snapping around, taking in everything around them - the small groups dashing past, taxis dropping people off, guys on corners hands deep in their anorak pockets, waiting for a deal.

Nick feels strange - all jittery and hyped. That pill wasn’t the best quality, maybe, after all. Maybe he should be home. Watching Red Dwarf and cuddling Pig. But the thought of that makes his stomach twist too. No. It’s better out here. Where there are lots of people. Lots of noise. Can’t hear your own thoughts so much on nights like this. It’s why he hasn’t stopped DJing. He hopes he’ll never have to give that up. That would end him.

Damien, the most terrifying bouncer Nick’s ever encountered and who should probably be in jail, is on the door, but he just grins at Annie, waves them all on in, roaring “SHUT IT YOU KNOBHEADS!!” when the line of people waiting for admission start complaining. 

Nick’s not been out here on a Thursday night, not for a while. Seems like it’s picking up or something. There weren’t ever queues like this before.

Harry seems to freeze for a moment once they all make their way inside. There’s something cathedral-like about this venue, Nick’s always felt. That huge cavernous space, the pillars holding up the high ceiling, even if they are painted in yellow and black stripes, like industrial hazard tape. Harry gazes, open-mouthed, at the vastness of it all. When he finally catches Nick’s eyes, he just laughs, helplessly.

It’s a furnace, the air much too hot and too thick, an atmosphere made up of heat and sweat and music so loud Nick can feel it pounding against his skin.

Annie leads them through the throngs until they’re under the DJ box, to the left of the stage. There are a bunch of skinny white lads in bucket hats piled together into the booth at the back. Nick thinks he’s seen them play here before. The Monday somethings, or something Mondays, maybe. Over near the bar, there’s a group of girls in mini-skirts and trainers. Beside them, some black guys in baggy jeans, standing aside to make way for two gay boys in neon vests. A man in a rumpled suit is pushing through with a frothy pint in his hand. Nick’s not seen this kind of mix in here before. He’s waiting for the inevitable tension to make itself apparent. But the vibe stays pretty good - a thrum of excitement humming through, like electricity down a line, just heat and a pounding, pounding beat.

It feels like the start of something. Something new being born.

Nick’s stomach jolts, suddenly. The way it always does now when thoughts of tomorrows prick his consciousness.

“Back in a mo,” he tells Harry, squeezing his arm.

He makes his way to the bathroom, drenching his hands under the taps and then pressing them to his face. The cold water against his hot skin is a thrill he feels in his spine. But when he pulls his hands away, the mirror over the sink catches him out and his face stares back at him, boney and hollow-eyed in the dim gloom of the loos.

Over his shoulder, a few paces back, another face is staring into the mirror too.

“Nick?”

He ducks his head to try to hide his grimace.

“Michael.” Nick reluctantly turns around to face him.

“Haven’t seen you in a bit.”

“Yeah… Well, that must be ‘cos of all the space you wanted, remember?” 

Michael nods at the ground for a minute. Then he runs his eyes over Nick’s body as he looks up.

“You’re looking … well … Uhh … lost weight?”

Fucking bastard. He’s fine. If it wasn’t for the fucking E Nick could probably think of some biting repartee. As it is, any anger he has seems to be floating in a tight bead just outside of himself, hovering close to him. He swats at it but it disappears somewhere he can’t quite reach.

“I mean … sorry …”

Nick snaps his face up to look at Michael. His pained expression is slightly sickening.

“What?!” 

There it is. The bead lodges back into Nick’ pituitary, pulses out a shot of pure white energy through his veins. “What did you say?”

“I just …” Michael holds his hands up, placatingly, “I heard about Dominick. I’m sorry. It’s … it’s so …”

“Do you mean Douglas?”

Nick suddenly wants to laugh, his lungs clench tightly inside his ribs and fights it. He feels the muscles of his jaw twitch, and gnaws at his tongue.

“I …”

Michael shifts on his feet, scratches at an eyebrow. He is looking well. He is. He looks the same. The same lithe, rock-solid mass of muscle and throbbing manhood. Fucking bastard.

“I meant Douglas, yeah,” he finishes eventually. Then he looks back pointedly at Nick again. “Mark now … Did you hear?”

Nick stares at him. No he hadn’t fucking heard. 

“He’s at St Bart’s. Andi’s been going to see him. He’s not sure if he knows he’s there though. I told Andi to tell you, because I knew you and Mark -”

“I haven’t seen Mark for, like, ages, months …” Nick tells him quickly.

“Oh, yeah. Right.”

“Maybe, a year, even.”

“OK.”

Nick feels a droplet of sweat trickling down the side of his face. His lungs are still clenching, tight, tighter, like an iron band is twisting around his chest. Mark. Adidas socks rolled into a ball he’d found under his bed a few days after. Wiry frame, thin limbs that folded up every which-way, those sharp teeth glinting bright when he laughed.

He whirls around, splashes water onto his face again.

“Are you … are you OK, Nick?”

“I’m fucking amazing, Michael,” Nick smiles at him in the mirror. But it’s reflecting his thin face again, that new sharpness to his cheekbones. He sees the white expanse of his forehead, the dark pools of his eye sockets, his mouth spread wide, big teeth gleaming in the gloom. “I’m on one. It’s mega, here, innit?”

“No, I meant like … well … I found out I’m clean. You should do it, the test - what with Douglas and now Mark and - ”

A couple of guys burst into the loos then, bare chested and sweaty. They elbow Nick out of the way to lean over the tiles at the edge of the sink, unwrapping a small plastic bottle, lowering their faces to sniff deeply.

“Alright, man?” 

One of them is looking up at him now.

“You that DJ - aren’t you? Fridays at Bernard’s, yeah?”

Nick nods, conscious of Michael standing still behind him. 

“Maaaaate!” The guy opens his arms wide and pulls Nick in for a tight, sweaty hug. “Going large tonight, yeah? Here pal - ‘ave at it!”

He’s handing the bottle to Nick and pressing down on his shoulder. As Nick takes a short sniff he hears the toilet door bang shut. When he looks up, Michael’s gone.

The poppers zing through him, making his head sway.

He shakes off the guy’s hand from his arm and goes back out there, away from the mirrors and the laughter of the two boys as they push into a stall together.

Harry’s looking for him when Nick goes back to the floor. Everything is heaving but Nick can see him, laughing with Annie and now Fiona and Ian are there too. Harry’s face lights up when he sees Nick, beams at him across the crowd.

The lights suddenly dip, the place cast into darkness, and the crowd surges, a murmur building to a crashing roar, and The Stone Roses prowl onto the stage.

He loses sight everyone then because the throngs push against him to get closer to the band. Base and drums stir up a growling pulse. It’s a wall of noise, like a tidal wave drawing up higher and higher. Just at the point when it feels like everyone’s about to drown, jangling guitar and metronomic base cut through, and it all crashes around them. The beat ticks fast, Ian Brown thrashing around the stage as the intro plays, eventually curling his small body round the mike. When he starts to sing, whispery and pleading, lazy and arrogant, Nick feels like he’s about to fucking unravel. 

He suddenly feels a body press against his back, hot breath on the back of his neck.

Harry’s eyes are wide and bright when Nick turns around. Behind him, on the stage, Ian’s singing like it’s a mantra - _“I want to be adored. I want to be adored. I wanna … I wanna… I wanna be adored …”_

And Harry’s just standing there, gazing at Nick. 

  
  
  
  
  


Nick finishes his set in a bit of a blur. He keeps it mostly indie-guitarish to keep the vibe going - lots of The Jam, Violent Femmes, My Bloody Valentine. And New Order of course because you’ve got to be nice to the people paying the bills. At the back of the booth, Harry and the rest of them pile like puppies on top each other on the floor, passing a joint back and forth till the tiny space get so thick with smoke and sweaty heat that Nick wants to award his lungs a medal for soldiering through it all.

Then everyone piles into cabs and follows him back home - all loud and giddy and tactile from the last traces of E pulsing in their veins. No one knows he ran into Michael. So that’s good. Everyone’s happy. No bad vibes. That’s what he likes.

Nick checks on the dogs in the kitchen. Artemesia has abandoned the bed Harry had made for her with his folded green shawl, and instead she's squeezed in beside Pig, who has curled up and tucked her nose into her new friend's wiry curls. 

Nick grins to himself and goes upstairs to dig out blankets and pillows for whoever’s sleeping here.

When he comes back down, everyone’s still chatting and skinning up and cracking open cans. Harry’s flat on his back on the floor in between Daisy and Pixie, the three of them with their legs propped up on the sofa seats, like the room tipped over and they’re just making the best of it.

“It was amazing,” Pixie’s saying, “Like, there was no roof on the Club - everyone was just dancing under the stars. And it never stopped - like, we’d just keep going till mid-day the next day, kip on the beach for a bit, and get right back to it.”

“That’s where I was born,” Harry says then, in his low, lazy voice.

“On a beach?” Nick hears Pixie asking him, confusedly, same time as Daisy is saying, “In Ibiza?”

Harry’s trying to drink sideways from a water glass without sitting up, and just ends up spilling it all over his face instead.

“Yes!” he tells her, like none of that just happened. Daisy gently wipes the droplets from his chin, giggling softly. “My Mum kind of ran away? Went to live in this, like, commune there? It was a big thing there, back then. It was just after the summer of love. Like - autumn, must have been! It was the autumn of love. Hippies and free love and flower power and ...” He points at her. “Daisies. Lots and lots of daisies.”

She laughs. “You were born in a hippie commune in Ibiza in the autumn of love?! That’s perfect. That’s the best beginning in life, ever.” 

Daisy’s smiling at him, bops his nose with her finger. “You’re so lucky,” she tells him and Harry smiles back. His fingertips are lazily trailing along Daisy’s forearm, like he doesn’t even realise he’s doing it.

Nick swallows and tosses the blankets on top of Fiona, who’s tipped sideways in the armchair, snoring softly. He had been planning to do his _dance of the seven veils_ thing again, but the mood's gone off him suddenly.

But it's all good. Everyone’s happy. This is what he wants.

  
  
  


He’s been in bed a while, the voices from downstairs floating through the floorboards, and he’s just beginning to drift off when he hears his bedroom door whisper open. There’s a cold sweep of air across his body as the bedclothes are lifted and sink back down again, the mattress dipping under him as another body rolls in close.

He blinks his eyes open, finds Harry’s face on the pillow next to his, his eyes open wide, fixed on Nick’s.

“There’s no room left on the floor,” he whispers.

Nick blinks his eyes closed again and chuckles softly. He’s a bit pleased. He’s nice and warm, is Harry.

“Oh alright then. No blanket hogging, though.” Then the mattress dips deeper, Harry's movement rolling them closer.

He forces his eyes open again and finds Harry leaning over him, staring at Nick’s mouth. He’s leaning down - and it happens before Nick realises it, before he even knew he was afraid - he flinches back at the first touch of Harry’s lips against his, the barest brush - that faint sensation of soft heat. Nick’s whole body revulses and he pushes Harry back, hard, his heart racing.

“Sorry! Sorry … I’m …” Harry’s saying as he rolls away.

Nick sits up, pinching at his lip, rubbing his thumb over the spot Harry’s had touched.

“Harry -” he tries.

“Ssshh. Go back to sleep. I’m so sorry…”

Nick watches Harry leave. He doesn’t try to call him back.


	2. Friday 19th February, 1988

Next day, when Nick finally manages to drag his body downstairs to the living room, and he finds Harry alone, slumped in his underwear on the sofa, legs sprawled out in front of him, staring into space.

Nick just grunts and goes into the kitchen because he feels like he’s done a few rounds with Mike Tyson and all that long-legged, almost-naked beauty is a bit too much to take on top of it all. He sees through the window that someone's already let the dogs out, and they're following Henrietta about the yard as she scratches for insects.

A few minutes later he staggers back from the kitchen with two mugs of tea in his hands, slides into the other end of the sofa, carefully looking straight ahead.

The groan of pleasure Harry makes after taking a sip is pornographic, which isn’t helpful.

Nick tries to work out how to explain about last night but in the end it’s Harry who gets in first, his voice hoarse and wavering.

“I hope I didn’t overstay my welcome. I’m sorry about … I’m going to go now. In a minute. I’ll head off. Thank you though.”

_“You can’t go!”_

Nick jumps at the voice that suddenly emanates from what he thought was just a heap of blankets on the floor.

Pixie worms her way out, eyeliner down her cheeks, hair standing straight up on her head.

“There’s that rave tonight - remember?” she yawns into her hand. “Near Blackpool. You said you’d drive us all?”

“Oh, yeah. I’d forgotten that.” Harry’s voice is so low and gravely, Nick is forced to pull a cushion onto his lap to hide what it’s doing to him.

“We’re going out again?” Nick manages to croak.

“What? You’re not up for it?" Pixie freezes mid-stretch, casts a sharp eye at Nick. "Maccy-Ds and a shower - you’ll be sorted. It'll be beltin'.”

Then her whole body slumps and she whimpers softly, sliding back down into her blankets.

Harry sighs in sympathy. "What I wish for now, more than anything in the world,” he mumbles, “is like, a freshly ground coffee. With lots of Mildred’s milk. And french toast and stewed apple. With cinnamon. The way Rosie makes it.”

“Rosie?” Nick asks weakly. He's curling around the sofa armrest, his body sinking into the softness like it's quicksand. 

“Oh … Rosie’s our cook.” Harry tells him, speaking in a sleepy, slow drawl, yawning. “Well, she was sort of my nanny too. She sort of brought me up, really. On french-toast and drop scones and rice pudding and blackberry jam." He stretches his legs out even further, toes wriggling into the air. "I picked the blackberries.”

“Ooooh. Sounds proper nice.” Nick murmurs, his eyes are beginning to close again, “Very Enid Blyton.” 

He swallows and concentrates on keeping his tone in the same sleepy, casualness, "And you shouldn't leave now. Come out dancing with us tonight. Not just to drive ... It'd be nice. Having you. It's been nice having you ..."

"Oh ..." Harry sounds a little surprised, "All right then, I will. If I'm not putting you out." 

He's pleased. Nick can hear it. He presses his lips together to hide his smile and slides down further to put his head on the armrest.

"Who's Mildred?" he asks then, in the stretch of quiet that follows.

"Mildred’s the cow.” Harry says, his voice a sleepy slur. “All the cows. We call them all Mildred.”

“Oh,” Nick mutters, his eyes still shut. “That's a relief, to be honest.”

And there’s a delay, but then Harry laughs. Then he slides a little sideways so his weight is resting against Nick's hip. And maybe it’s some residue of the E but the warm pressure of his body against Nick’s makes something inside him swoop and flutter, like a summer swallow.

  
  
  
  
  


“Music! Music! Come on! Down with silence!!”

George drums violently against Nick’s seat, making Nick’s head rattle against the cushion, before reaching forward for the radio dial from where he’s sitting in the back, squeezed in between Pixie, Aimee, and Stu.

“No! Get away! I made a special tape! Just for our drive! Full of driving songs.” Nick slaps his hand away and digs out the tape from his shirt pocket. He’d put it together quite quickly that afternoon, while Harry went to collect the car from the garage, the dogs trotting along beside him. It was done just as Harry arrived back with an armful of Greek food - his thank-you to Nick, and to Fiona, who’s staying in to mind the dogs.

It’s fully dark already and the street lights of the M61 are zipping past the window. He’s peering at the wood-effect console in front of him, trying to figure out where the radio is in the myriad of glowing dials and buttons, when Harry reaches from the driver seat beside him, slides the tape from Nick’s fingers and slips it into the correct slot.

Nick wants to make a rude joke about him finding his hole, but Harry’s been a bit subdued again all day, he’s not sure if he should risk it.

“If this is ZZ Top we’re tossing you out of this moving vehicle, Nick. Just making that clear.” George grumbles but the first crashing chord quietens him.

“Shut up.” Nick reaches forward and twists the dial to turn up the volume for the Jesus and Mary Chain opener.

_“Listen to the girl, as she takes on half the world …”_

“I looove this, Nicholas!” Harry slaps at the steering wheel, leaning back into his seat. 

Nick shoots him a proud glance and takes in the way the air from the open window is rippling through his curls. He’s beaming through the dark.

“Well I am a professional,” he tells him.

Harry laughs again, still smiling at the road. 

“I love this,” he repeats, quietly. Almost to himself.

_“Just like honey, just like honey…”_

Pixie gets them to pull in at a petrol station she’s been looking out for. She and George clamber out and go inside to use the pay-phone to access the answering service number they've been given.

They come back with directions scribbled on the back of George's hand.

"We're going to have to get one of those mobile phone things," Aimee says, "if we're going to keep doing this."

"Ugh, no way," Pixie shakes her head, "only dealers and knobheads use those. Couldn't be arsed heaving a brick around all the time, anyway."

And then Harry’s off again, this time abandoning the motorway to turn down narrow by-lanes, the moonlight shining on the fields the only illumination.

“Where’d you get this car from anyway?” Stu suddenly pipes up from the back. He’s been moodily silent so far. “You a yuppie, Harry?”

Nick gives him a pointed look over his shoulder, eyebrow arched. Stu has a thing about yuppies. It’s best not to let him get started.

“Harry’s being kind enough to drive us all _Stewart_ , for miles and miles to this rave you want to go to,” Nick points out, “so I don’t think we should be grilling him about his socio-economic status while he’s doing it, should we now?”

From the corner of his eye, Nick sees Harry biting his lip to keep his laughter silent.

Stu sniffs. Sulks out the window for a minute. Then he leans forward again.

“You’re not a Tory, are you?”

“Oh. No. I don’t really have any political affiliations,” Harry says mildly.

“Good.” Stu huffs, slumping back again. “’Cos I’d rather walk, I would.”

“Mind you …” Harry continues, as if he hadn’t heard, “she has been round, once or twice. For tea.”

Everyone freezes and focuses in on Harry.

“Who? Maggie?” Pixie asks, mouth dropped open.

“She’s surprisingly charming in person," Harry says, casually. "Brought a lovely apple tart. Made it herself.”

There’s no sound in the car for a moment, just the rumble of the wheels over tarmac, and then, suddenly, the plaintive wail of that unmistakable guitar as _“How Soon Is Now”_ comes up next on the stereo.

“Oh!” Harry reaches for the volume dial. “Perfect choice, Nick! This has to be the best song for driving, ever!”

 _“I am a human and I need to be loved … just like everybody else does …_ ” Harry sings along, his eyes glinting in held-back laughter as he catches Nick’s.

  
  
  
  
  


“I think I remember here,” Nick says - it’s coming back to him all of a sudden - that petrol station and the twin oaks at the top of the laneway. “I think there’s a caravan park a couple of miles away. My grandparents used to bring us there on hols when we were kids.”

He peers out the window, like he might see it in the dark, but Aimee slaps her hand over his eyes.

“Now is not the time for your childhood nostalgia, Nick! Tonight we’re leaving the past behind. The future starts here!”

Nick shakes off her hand and keeps quiet.

When they see a police-car cruising past, they decide to park a few fields away from the warehouse, and walk along the lane under the pale moonlight, the faint rattle of techno carrying along the evening breeze. It’s cold. Beside him in another of Nick’s t-shirts Harry is shivering, but they take a pill each as they walk, and Pixie slips in between Nick and Harry to link arms, and then soon enough they round the corner at the end of the lane, and the abandoned building looms in front of them, grey and dark. 

George lets out a loud, high-pitched “Whooot!” and dashes forward, dragging Stu along with him. 

“Lets get on one!” he roars and it seems like a thousand voices cheer back through the open doorway and they disappear into the crowd, Pixie and Aimee streaking after them.

Inside, the place is dark but throbbing with energy - a hoard of dancers and flashing lights and the relentless _uum-chk-uum-chk-uum-chk_ of acid house and people strewn in neon streamers and cross-eyed, smiley-face logos leering down from overhead beams.

Nick’s coming up - feels it kicking in his stomach - and suddenly there are one hundred heartbeats inside every bar and Nick is alive, alive, alive - blood thrumming, rushing fast, fast, fast through his veins.

Beside him, Harry’s moving to the beat, circling around with a thin, blond girl that Nick’s never seen before. He’s happy though. It’s all over his beaming face. They’re beautiful. They’re both so beautiful. Everyone is. 

It’s amazing. 

Everything is fucking amazing.

They just dance. 

For hours.

People brush past and smile and hug and share sips of water from the bottles everyone’s carrying. 

Pixie and George appear again, after a while, stars shining out of their eyes, and they all drop another half each because it’s all so good. It’s all so, so good. It can only get better.

“I feel like the girl in the red shoes!” Nick leans over to tell Harry at one point. “I’ll never stop dancing.”

“What?” Harry’s grinning. Arms over his head as the beat rips faster. Everyone cheers, and Nick forgets what he was saying. Just goes with it. 

Keeps dancing. He just keeps dancing. And nothing can touch him. There’s nothing else. Just this.

It’s later, hours later, and they’ve moved outside and the night air feels like cool silk on their sweating skin.

It’s still loud, speakers pounding now out into the darkness outside the warehouse as well as inside. The crowd thinner, more spread out, but it feels like everyone is here - everyone! And everyone is smiling and beautiful and so, so happy together.

“I feel like … there’s so much love here!” Harry grabs at Nick’s wrist, squeezes it.

“Theres so much love. It’s huge. It’s huge Nick!”

Nick laughs. Harry’s eyes are wide, darting around.

“It’s so much,” he continues, stumbling. “It’s breaking my heart, I think.”

He stops dancing. Stops and lets go of Nick’s wrist, turning around in a circle to look at everyone around them.

“Nick, my heart is broken.” He says then, coming to a stop in front of Nick. And he presses his fingers against his lips, his eyes shining too bright suddenly.

Nick pauses for only a split second, then he wraps Harry up tight in his arms, hugs him in close. 

“Mine too, babe.”

Harry presses in. Nick feels the heat of his skin burning against him where they're touching. The lights flare, spotlights rising from somewhere, the beat heightens again. They break apart, grins spread across both their faces. Bass rumbles faster. Everything’s coming up again. The whole world is rising. 

Harry raises his arms, throws back his head and yells - “ I LOOOOOOOVE!”

Nick feels his heart beat, his heart is beating so fast, in such joy. They’re here. They’re alive. The love around them is huge.

He catches Harry’s eye and laughs.

“It’s HUUUUUUUGE!!!” He yells back at him.

And Harry nods seriously. Moves back to twirl around and around. 

Huge love.

Nick sees him mouthing the words as he spins and spins. Huge love.

  
  
  
  
  


It’s cold, Nick knows objectively, but doesn’t feel it, the E is a glowing furnace still, in the depths of him. 

Harry’s leaning close, gangling limbs knocking against his.

“Shhusssh!” Harry’s whisper is hot and damp against his ear, making Nick squirm, and then Harry’s laughing, too loud, head thrown back, falling away, gone too far away.

“Shhusssh Harry,” Nick tells him, grabbing out for him, missing, catching empty air. “Quiet. Shussh.”

Harry’s back at his side, heavy now, an arm heavy across Nick’s shoulders. “I’m quiet Nicholas. Promise. Quiet as a mouse.”

About thirty minutes ago they left the rave behind, wandered for miles along the country lane that Nick remembered with greater and greater clarity with each step. And then they found the seaside, and they’re trudging now over the pebbles, cascading them in loose rattles down the slope as they stride, no - stumble, across the beach. The sea is shushing them too, with it's black relentlessness. It rushes towards them and retreats again, like someone grasping at something and then hesitating when it's in reach. 

“Oh make up your mind!” Nick shouts to it. “Make up your bloody mind!”

“Shussh Nick!” Harry’s laughing mouth is pressed against Nick’s ear again, setting off that shivering coil inside the base of Nick’s spine. “Nick. Where are we going?”

“To the caravan, Harry. Remember?”

“Oh.”

They step from the pebble slope onto the strand. Harry’s grip is tight on Nick’s bicep now, and he’s dragging him low, down down, until they’re both collapsed onto the wet sand.

“Oh no,” Nick sits up and laughs into his hands. “Harry … no, no, you made me get my knickers all wet”

Harry creases up, his fingers tighter into the muscle of Nick’s arm. He’s probably going to leave bruises, he’s holding on so tight.

When he stops laughing, he sits up too, bumps his head into Nick’s shoulder, leans into him.

“I just thought. We should look at the view, Nick. The sea and the stars and the night … it’s beautiful.”

Nick looks up, faces the sea, that black endlessness. That mocking, empty infinity. 

All right. There it is. Dark as an open grave. 

He shakes himself. No.

“Blackpool … Bahamas … Which one is this again, Harry? I honestly can’t tell…”

Way off in the distance, where the shoreline curves round the bay, the lights of Blackpool are glowing hazily, the tower looming into the starless sky. They’re definitely too far away, but Nick’s half-convinced he can hear the faint jangle of the amusements. Or maybe it’s just the rave, back across the fields. So much life everywhere, and they just walked away from it all to here, where the fog is coming in.

Harry shivers beside him, crawls closer, huddles into him.

Nick wraps his arm around him. He feels Harry’s’ face pressing against his neck.

“Not going to take in much of the view, doing that, love.”

“Maybe …” Harry hasn’t moved. “Maybe, it’s not the best beach really, for this type of thing.”

“Do you reckon? I love a bit of bleak winter, me. Nothing more British than sitting on a beach in the cold and drizzle. It’s the spirit of the Blitz still alive and kicking, Harry. Now, where’s me Smith’s record?”

Nick rubs a hand up and down Harry’s arm. He can feel the goosebumps on his soft skin. He still smells so good. Even after the drive and the dancing and the muddy field. Nick can smell a citrusy freshness from his hair, cut-grass sharpness of his sweat, he’s just freshness and youth and throbbing aliveness. Nick’s stomach flips. Something opening up inside him that feels like falling.

“What’s the first thing you remember? Like, ever?” Harry’s voice is hoarse.

Nick shrugs. It dislodges Harry from his shoulder.

“Dunno. I think it’s this time I woke up left in the car by myself. I was all strapped up in my car-seat and I couldn’t get out. Think my Mum and Dad mustn’t have wanted to wake me. Probably needed a bit of peace.”

Harry chuckles. It’s a while before he speaks, looking straight ahead.

“I think I remember this time … my Mum…” Harry begins, but then his voice trails away.

Nick elbows him gently. 

“Come on, is it share our childhood trauma time? Spit it out.”

Harry digs his heel into the sand for a bit, then he starts talking again.

“I remember my Mum taking us to this beach when we were very little, me and my sister. It was night-time. I guess this must have been when we were still in Ibiza, ‘cos it was warm and everyone was dancing and there was a big fire. Huge pieces of driftwood, and sparks going up into the sky." 

Harry flutters his fingers up over his head to demonstrate.

"And the sand was all soft and white, like this big, soft bed. I just remember the moon being so, so big and so bright. And the reflection … there was this, like, moonbeam just spilling across the sea in front of us. And I remember thinking it was like a path. That I could just run across it, this silver road, and I’d get to the moon, and like, I could talk to the man there, the big smiley man…”

Nick nudges him. “Are you trying to tell me you wanted to be just like Dorothy, on her yellow brick road?”

“Yeah? I suppose.”

Nick can hear the smile in Harry’s voice. 

“And, the thing is, I remember taking off and being really happy and excited. ‘Cos I was going to get to see the cow and the dish that ran away with the spoon - you know that nursery rhyme? And then … I think I remember going down under the water and just … it was really cold and … Well, I don’t really remember much else. Just … it was dark and cold and I couldn’t … couldn’t …”

Nick reaches and pulls Harry in close again. He feels him take in a huge breath and let it go again slowly, his whole body sinking into the sand beside him.

“I don’t remember anything else. I think … it was after that, I think, that we were sent back.”

“Sent back?”

“We came back to Grandmother, then. Me and Gemma. She took us in. Into her house, her big house. So many rooms. We couldn’t even play hide and seek anymore, it was so big, no one ever got found.”

Nick waits. He feels Harry waiting too, waiting for him to ask.

“Didn’t your Mum come too?”

Harry stays quiet.

“My Mum came to visit all the time. All my birthdays. I had a lovely life. I had Rosie. There was this big fireplace in the scullery where we’d keep the eggs for hatching. And I had Henrietta. All the Mildrids. And I had the dogs and Lacey. I had so much space. I’d run for miles and miles. I had everything anyone could ever want, didn’t I? I had everything really. I’ve been so lucky. I was given such a good life.”

Nick wants to pull him tighter but he can’t move suddenly.

“You must have missed her though, your Mum? If she stayed in Ibiza.”

“Oh, she didn’t stay. She’s a free spirit, a gypsy. You know that Fleetwood Mac song? _“She’s dancing away from you now. She’s just a wish …”_ That’s my Mum. She’s beautiful.”

Harry leans up and reaches around to his back pocket, pulls out a small address book, the spine is cracked and pages loose, held together with an elastic band. Nick had seen him carefully place it in the back pocket of Nick's borrowed jeans earlier, hadn't thought much about it or why Harry hadn't considered leaving it behind. 

Even though it’s too dark to see, Harry flips it open, fingers through one, two, three pages at the back - “All Mum’s … She always sent me postcards though. Every few days. So I’ve always felt loved, you see. I know she loves me.”

“Where is she now?”

“Here, actually. Well … England. Lake District.”

“Not far.”

“No.” Harry’s voice is very quiet. “Not far.”

He shivers again.

“She falls in love too easily. I get that from her.”

Then he’s bounced up onto his feet.

Nick turns to look up at him, his mouth opening to ask what he’s doing, but then Harry’s t-shirt drops onto his face.

“Let's swim to the moon, Nick!”

By the time Nick’s pulled himself free, Harry’s down the beach, hopping as he pulls one shoe off, and then another, then his trousers are sliding down his long, lean legs. He's cackling as he tosses the trousers over his shoulder, tears down the sand towards the waves, stopping just once to pull off his pants. Nick gets a glimpse of his neat, pale bum just before he crashes into the water, shrieking and kicking up a white froth as he plunges deeper.

Nick’s breath catches in his throat, and then he laughs. He lets his head fall back and collapses into the sand and just laughs and laughs, up to where the sound of Harry’s yelling and splashing is rising too, filling up all the space in the dark, starless sky.

  
  
  
  
  


Nick’s Granda’s caravan is the last in the line and this time they both manage to stay shushed as they meander through the quiet campground. The key is hidden inside a spice jar under the tow-bar, like always, and Nick flicks over the switch on the gas canister before they clamber inside. 

He lights the lamp, fills the old tin kettle with water from the carton under the sink, and suddenly he’s eight years old again, standing in front of the blue flame, waiting, inside this old caravan that smells of must and sea salt and argon gas. He’s back from swimming, cold and shivering inside a thin wet towel and Nana Beatty is making hot chocolate with water to warm him up. 

And his Granda is outside still in his swimmies, pale bare chest and whiskery hairs plastered flat on his legs. He’s doing something with the car - the hood popped open - even though the usual Blackpool drizzle is falling and the neighbour’s tent-flaps are riled by the wind. And he remembers his Granda being a bit annoyed at him, that Nick wasn’t interested in helping with the car, that he wanted to come inside and be with his Nana instead. It might have been the first time Nick really allowed himself to feel it, to know himself. That he wasn’t ever going to be a man like that. Not his Granda’s version of what a man ought to be. 

His Nana Beatty had rubbed his back then and pressed the packet of ginger snap biscuits into his hand to share with his sister and Nick had also realised, straight after, right then, that he was fine with it. He’d be fine.

He always thought everything would be fine, in the end. He was young then.

Nick’s ransacked the lockers and has got Harry tucked into a nest of sleeping bags and someone’s abandoned tracksuit. He’s stretched on the bed Nick made by folding down the dining table and rearranging the cushions and he’s watching Nick's shadowy reflection in the back window.

Their damp, sandy clothes are hanging up in the tiny bathroom and Nick’s wearing a baggy woolly jumper that hangs down to his thighs. He’s not sleepy. His eyes feel pinned wide open still, jittery twitches still running along his muscles every now and then. But he really wants to lie down. Before the sun comes up. He just wants to lie down and be somewhere soft and dark, with a warm body pressed close, breathing gently against his.

 _Wishing doesn’t make it so._ His Granda used to say that to him.

Nick pours hot water over the cocoa powder, spoons in sugar, and knee shuffles onto the mattress beside Harry, settles in against his side when Harry sits up to take his drink.

“Thank you.” 

“You’re welcome.”

They’re quiet together for a while. And then he feels Harry take a breath to start speaking a couple of times.

“When did you know?” He eventually asks, his voice quiet, barely more than a murmur. “That it was boys that you liked best?”

Nick exhales. He’s made the cocoa too sweet, it feels sticky on his tongue. He puts his mug down on the floor.

“I don’t know,” he sighs eventually. “There wasn’t ever a big moment of revelation, you know? It’s just always been there. It was never anything else.”

“Oh.”

Harry sips at his drink.

“I think I felt some stirrings when Christopher Reeve took his clothes off in that phone booth though," Nick adds. "That was a pinpoint moment, probably.”

Harry smiles, putting down his mug on the window ledge to turn into Nick.

“There was this time, a couple of years ago,” he says, “with Kip - he was one of the groundsmen. Grandmother told him to teach me to shoot. So we walked to the top field and he …” Harry nestles into Nick a bit more, presses his back against Nick’s chest. “… he make me lean back against him to help me hold the rifle, put his arms around me, to show me where to put my fingers." Harry takes Nick's hands and places them over his wrists. "He had these big, thick fingers, all calloused and tobacco stained. And I remember … that feeling, the rough wool of his jumper and the smell of pipe smoke ...”

Nick feels Harry shiver, a tremble that runs right through his body. Nick can hear it in his breathing.

“And when it turned out I could shoot, that I had a good aim, he still didn’t let go, he was still there, wrapped all around me, his voice in my ear - “Well done, lad”” Harry’s already deep voice drops lower, broadens into a northern inflection, “That’s it, lad.”

“Everyone was impressed with me. I never flinched. Even Grandmother was proud … But …”

Harry’s voice drops to a gruff whisper, and he turns to whisper against Nick’s neck, “They never knew what I was thinking about the whole time.”

Nick’s breath catches as Harry shifts against him, his lips dragging against the skin of Nick’s throat. “I was thinking about such dirty things, Nick. I didn't even understand … but all I thought about was how much I wanted it. I didn't even understand what it was. But ... I wanted to be fucked, I think. I wanted it so bad.”

And then Harry’s turning around and he puts his hand on Nick’s face.

“I still want it, Nick. I want that now. I want you.”

The broad expanse of his hand is warm on Nick’s cheek. Harry drifts his thumb over Nick’s bottom lip and moves closer, mouth opening, and Nick can feel his breath hot against his own mouth, and - with a wrench that feels like being ripped apart - he turns his face away. 

Harry stills against him.

They’re both breathing hard, ragged and loud in the dark.

“It’s OK,” Harry says then, quietly, his legs widening to spread across Nick’s lap. “Nick it’s … it’s OK.”

Nick shakes his head. No.

“No, it is. It really is.” And Harry’s pulling back then. And he shuffles away, sits back, opposite Nick, tucks his thumbs into the waistband of his tracksuit.

Nick reaches forward to grip Harry’s wrist to stop him “Harry, no … I … I can’t …”

But Harry shakes him off, wriggles away and he’s pulling off his clothes, “Nick, it’s OK. It really is.”

Nick pulls himself out from under the sleeping bags, gets his feet onto the floor. “Harry …”

“No, Nick. Look!” 

There’s something in Harry’s voice, that brings Nick to a stop. Some tone that’s too close to the quavering timbre of fear. So Nick turns around, slowly, his heart beating, and Harry’s sitting, naked, his legs splayed on the cushions in front of him. He’s reaching forward, his two hands gripping his right shin.

Nick frowns, looks at Harry questioningly. And then Harry shifts further forward, into the light, sliding his foot out so it’s resting close to Nick’s thigh, and he whispers - “Look.”

And Nick sees it. Sees them. The cluster of dark purple smudges blemishing the skin at the bottom of Harry’s shin.

Harry shifts again. Switches over his legs and there, just by the heel of his left foot, another one, tucked into that soft space at the back of his ankle.

Nick waits to feel something. To feel all those things he felt the other times for the boys he’s loved - the horror, the terror, the rage. He’d wanted to howl at the universe the other times. He’d raged for nights and nights in the dark, sobbing and punching the walls. 

It’s all gone now. There’s nothing.

He looks at Harry, who is shaking all over. Despite it, he smiles at Nick. 

“Doesn’t hurt,” he whispers.

Nick reaches for his hand where it’s gripping the fabric between their bodies. He loosens Harry’s tight fist, entwines their fingers.

“You see?” The tremor is rattling through Harry’s voice now. “You don’t have to be worried. About … hurting me … or anything. We’re the same. Same as your Douglas. And you …”

Harry takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I like you so much, Nick. And I just … I can’t bear it if … If I don’t ever get to be _touched_ again. I won’t be able to stand it. I -”

Nick just reaches for him and pulls him close. Harry collapses against him, presses his face into his chest, snakes his arms around and squeezes tight. He’s holding on like Nick’s going to stop him from falling, like he’s trying to bury into him.

Then he looks up and Nick sighs and takes his face between his hands.

Harry closes his eyes and leans in…

“Harry,” Nick whispers to him, “I can’t.”

Harry’s eyes fly open. He freezes.

Nick strokes along his cheekbones, tucks a strand of hair behind his ear.

“Harry,” he takes his hands. The cuffs of his jumper swallowing Harry's fingers too. “I’m so sorry, love. I’ve been tested. It was negative. And I promised … I promised I’d be careful. I’m sorry. You can’t begin to know how sorry I am. But I can’t do that. I can’t fuck you. Or anyone. I just ... can't ...”

Nick watches Harry’s eyes widen. He watches a dark flush rush across Harry’s face, sees him drop his head.

“I wish …” Nick starts, but Harry just pushes himself backwards on the mattress, puts space between them.

“Oh,” he whispers. “I thought … I just thought … I’m really sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry, Harry.”

Nick feels like his own throat is going to strangle him.

“It’s not fair. Is it?” he manages to say.

Harry just shakes his head slowly. He smiles, this very small little smile, down at the covers.

“I just like you, Nick.” 

His whisper is so quiet now, Nick can hardly hear him.

“I like you too, Harry,” Nick whispers back to him.

Harry’s sitting with his knees drawn up, arms folded loosely around himself. The smooth skin of his long limbs catches the gleam from the lamp in the corner. He’s looking down, thick eyelashes casting tiny shadows down onto his cheeks.

Nick huffs a sharp little exhale that makes Harry glance up.

“You are so incredibly beautiful, Harry. You’ve no idea.”

Harry pulls a wry face. “Fat lot of good that ever did me.”

Nick pulls the same face back at him.

It makes Harry’s smile shift a bit, lighten into something ever so slightly brighter.

“C’mere,” Nick says, shuffling so he’s back on the mattress, wriggling onto his side to make room.

Harry hesitates.

“We can have a cuddle. That’s all right, isn’t it?”

Slowly, Harry crawls over and lies down beside Nick, turning his back to him and curling up on his side, spooning his body along the length of Nick’s.

Nick puts and arm around him and draws him in. He kisses his shoulder blade. Pauses at the taste of salt on his lips.

“You taste like the sea,” he tells him.

He kisses him there again, nuzzling against his warm skin. 

He feels Harry exhale shakily.

"I don't know what to do," he whispers. "I don't know what to do."

Nick squeezes his eyes shut tight. He puts his palm flat over Harry's racing heart.

"I'm afraid," Harry whispers.

"I know," he whispers back. "I am too. All the time."

Harry presses his hand over Nick's where it's pressing against Harry's chest.

"But you're ... OK? Aren't you?"

Nick's fist clenches, "Maybe ... But ... I'm still afraid. All the time. I'm fucking terrified, Harry."

Harry's fingers wrap through Nick's - exactly as Nick had done for him earlier, and he brings Nick's hand to his lips, kisses his knuckles gently, his breath moist and hot over Nick's skin.

Nick kisses Harry's shoulder again. Then he touches his tongue against him, tastes that salt again. 

He finds his hand drifting along Harry’s torso, gripping his hip. He pulls him in close, unable to stop himself now, and he presses his mouth along the groove of Harry's spine.

Harry gasps and shudders.

“Nick,” he says, “it’s OK. You don’t have to.”

“I know. I know... I just like you, Harry." His hand is roaming the length of Harry’s side, down to his thigh. He feels his own dick throb, feels this intense yearning to just nudge his hips forward, push against Harry’s ass. Instead he bites his lip, and dips his hand around the front of Harry’s leg, running his fingers into the soft flesh of his inner thighs. Then he moves up and palms over his crotch, feels the heat of Harry’s thickening dick, and he curls his fingers around it, pulling him gently, feeling him harden inside his touch.

“Nick,” Harry gasps, and his fingers grip like a vice around Nick’s forearm.

“It's OK,” Nick kisses his neck, “it’s OK.”

And he tugs at Harry, gently, slowly getting him worked up. A sheen of sweat flashes across Harry’s skin suddenly and he whimpers, rolling onto his back and pressing his lips against Nicks.

“Maybe ...” Nick whispers into his ear, pulling away, his heart beating frantically, “I can watch you. I’d like that. Would you let me?”

And Harry looks up at him, blinking hard, and Nick kisses his shoulder. 

“Come on, give me a show? Ever done that for someone before?”

Harry pauses and then a little glint crosses his face. He rolls up and kneels on the mattress while Nick shuffles back and sits up against the caravan wall.

At first Harry laughs a little, looks a bit sheepish, until Nick pushes up the hem of his jumper and takes his own dick in his hand. Harry’s eyes flash and he leans back and wanks, steady and firm, nothing showy really. He just keeps his eyes fixed on what Nick’s doing to himself, his mouth dropped open, his cheeks flushed.

Nick tightens his hand and goes faster, grunting a bit, because _shit_ Harry looks so good on his knees in front of him. He tugs at the neck his sweater, the wool too heavy and scratchy now.

"Take that off," Harry pants, "please". 

And Nick hurries to wrestle himself free and when he turns back, naked, his long thin limbs stretched out between them, he sees the blush on Harry's skin spreading down his neck and onto his chest. His breaths come in fast, shallow, gasps. He bites his lip and looks up at Nick’s face. Then he shuts his eyes and arches his back and _groans_. Which brings out a little involuntary moan from Nick and Harry keels forward in response.

“Oh fuck, I’m going to come,” he gasps and then his whole body convulses and he tips forward, getting a hand beneath him just in time. Then Nick goes too, seeing Harry there in front of him on his hands and knees, come spilling over the knuckles of his fist, and he collapses back against the wall as his orgasm rocks through him.

They’re both quiet for a while, their quickened breathing the only sound.

Harry sits back, glances up at Nick. 

His skin’s glowing, his eyes bright, damp hair curling over his brow. He’s so beautiful. He’s so alive. Anything else is a lie, and the gods of this world are fools.

He huffs a small laugh, bites his lip. They’re both holding their hands awkwardly, still cupping their own come, Nick realises. 

Harry glances around him. Nick sees his eyes rest on the nearest loose fabric and all he can think is - _you little bugger_.

“Harry Styles!” 

Nick’s voice is so stern that Harry swivels back, wide-eyed, in an instant.

“Those are my Nana Beatty’s good net curtains - don’t you dare even _think_ about it.”

  
  
  


Once they do get themselves tidied up, they lie quietly, curled into each other, skin to skin.

“Are you sure?” Nick asks.

Harry nods, his head moving against Nick’s chest.

“How long have you known?” Nick asks.

Harry swallows tightly. “For certain? Since last Thursday. All week I’ve been trying to work out how to tell Grandmother but ... But then, when she started talking to Kip about Henrietta … I just couldn’t. I just didn’t know what to do. I just … left…”

Nick waits until Harry’s breathing slows down again.

“Do you know … how?”

He feels Harry shrug. 

“Suppose it was … there was this pub … I’d go walking and … there was this pub. It wasn’t far off the motorway. Did a good carvery roast. Had a few rooms upstairs. It got lots of passing trade - drivers, traveling salesmen. I … I found out what some of them liked… I’d smile at them and they’d … some of them would ask me back … to their cars, or upstairs … They liked me. Liked their bit of posh totty - that’s what they said. I don’t know which one might have … I thought it was just … I thought they were nice, all of them. There were nice men. Just, ordinary, nice men, you know?”

Nick knows. He’s knows a lot about ordinary, nice men who’ve left him now with nothing but memories and mixtapes. 

He pulls Harry closer, runs his hand up and down his back.

“It’ll be alright,” he murmurs into the top of his head. Which is such a brazen, blatant lie that they both catch their breaths. Silence runs on then, for so long that it seems like it’s swallowing the world.

Nick watches a few moths hammering their tiny bodies against the black window, drawn to the soft glow of the lamplight. It's warm here now, where they're all bundled up and buried under the bedding. Harry's still pressing into him, breathing softly against his chest.

“What sort of a name is Kip anyway?” Nick mutters into Harry’s hair when he can’t stand it any more. “Like … Kip …? What’s it short for?” 

Harry looks up with a frown. “That’s what you’re thinking about?”

“What kind of an grown man with callouses on his hands goes around calling himself ‘Kip’?” Nick huffs. It makes Harry’s hair puff. “It’s a bit ridiculous, Harry, that’s all. Couldn’t you have picked someone with a more sensible name for your first man-crush? I don’t like to say, but honestly, it detracted from your whole story.”

Harry snorts and buries his face back into Nick’s chest, wriggling tighter into Nick’s body.

“No, I’m serious,” Nick tells him sternly, gently stroking his hair from his forehead, scratching gently over his skull, like Harry’s a cat in need of petting. “I was all wrapped up in your tale of erotic awakening with the guns and the hills and the pipe. But then … Kip... Like, _Kip_ …?”

“Shut up, Nick,” Harry’s smiling, Nick can hear it. “He can’t help that that’s his name.”

Nick’s quiet for a while. Then he silently mouths the word again, his lips popping on the “p”.

Harry punches his arm. 

Nick grins into the top of his head.


	3. 20th February

**Saturday, 20th February, 1988**

He can’t have drifted off for more than few minutes, but when he opens his eyes, Nick’s alone in the little caravan.

There’s a ghostly dawn pressing against the window, all foggy and diaphanous, like gossamer. The sky has paled to an ashy grey. 

The only trace of Harry is the empty wire hanger swinging from the shower-rail in the little bathroom.

Nick tidies everything and locks up. He waits for a while, kicking around little gravel stones outside the door, shivering in last night’s still-damp clothes. 

Then he looks up, at the hill that edges the campsite…

  
  
  


When he gets to the summit, Harry’s kneeling there in the grass wearing Nick's giant jumper, looking down over the sea.

“Thought there’d be a sunrise.” Harry tells him sulkily when Nick finally makes it up to him, panting heavily. He's pouting, looking out over the flat, grey sea, at the horizon cloaked in mist.

 _How dare it?!_ Nick thinks. _How dare the morning deny Harry his sunrise?_

Nick looks out over the gloomy seascape for a while, hands on his hips.

“Harry,” he says, finally coming to a decision, “if we can’t get you a sunrise, would a moon suffice?”

Harry plucks at the grass. “Yes, alright,” he mutters, “We can wait for the moon.”

“Don’t have to wait though, do you?”

And Harry looks up puzzled.

Nick grimaces as he does it, but fuck it, he bends down to pull off his mud-stained Nikes, tossing them carelessly behind him. He does the same with his socks, then reaches for the button of his jeans.

“Nick, what ..?”

He’s got his jeans down, kicking off his underwear, before Harry’s expression changes from one of shock to laughter. 

Nick hears him cackling as he turns and bends over to waggle his white arse at Harry, and then he just tears off down the hill, yelling back over his shoulder - “You want the moon, you got your moon, Harry Styles!!!!”

He races down over wet grass, down over the grainy sand, sheds his t-shirt and flings himself into the water, the cold stealing the air from his lungs as he plunges in. 

Everything disappears except icy shock for a second but when Nick surfaces, Harry’s on the beach, staggering over the sand with Nick’s clothes bundled in his arms. His laughter rings out loud and clear. And there's something fierce burning inside Nick that keeps the cold from touching the depths of him.

  
  
  


Crows caw loudly to each other in the tree branches overhead, like there’s a joke they’re all in on, as Nick and Harry meander back to the field where they left the car.

Harry had forced Nick back into his over-size jumper again, but his teeth are still chattering against each other. He shakes the sleeves down over his hands and flaps his arms around himself in attempt to flatten the goosebumps that have risen on his skin. 

“Nick, was it …” Harry stops, takes a breath and shoves his hands into his pockets. A soft drizzle is falling around them, droplets glistening on the ends of Harry's curls. He starts speaking again.

“For your friends … was it bad for them … at the end?”

An image assails Nick - Paul, cheeks hollowed, mouth opened into a dark cavern, gasping. He’d drowned. The pneumonia filling his lungs. He’d drowned in a hospital bed, in a room empty except for Nick and his mother and the cold April air streaming in uselessly through the window he'd begged them to open for him.

Nick turns, sees Harry’s eyes, bright with fear.

“No, no Harry, it was peaceful, it was like going home,” Nick tells him, his voice steady.

Harry smiles, looking more grateful than relieved.

“You need to find a place,” Nick manages to choke out, “somewhere they’re good … you have money, there’ll be a place.”

Another image - that closed hospital room, the skull and crossbones warning on the door, the staff draping themselves in protective capes and masks so they looked like ghouls every time they'd reluctantly entered. 

But that was a couple of years ago ... It isn’t like that any more, Nick reminds himself. Douglas had hospice care at home. A kind Jamaican nurse who hummed gently and held his hand while his eyes rolled sightlessly in his head.

“There are all these new drug trials now. Douglas’ doctor was trying to get him on one. New combinations of stuff. You’ve got money. You can access things.”

Harry kicks at a stone on the road in front of him.

“Grandmother will disown me,” he says hoarsely, “I’m sure of it. And I don’t come into my own money ‘till I’m twenty-one.”

That might be too long to wait. Nick knows that’s the unspoken part of that sentence.

“Your mum? Your sister?” Nick prompts.

“I don’t want to make them sad.” Harry says, quietly. “They’ll be so sad.”

Nick takes his hand. There’s a car growling its way up the lane behind them, but he doesn’t care if they see. He’d sort of welcome someone trying to start something now, relish a reason to dole out some pain. He squeezes Harry’s palm against his.

“I need to, just, go away. I need to get far away," Harry mutters, "It's not fair on anyone else. To be a burden.”

“Is that you, or your grandmother talking, Harry?" Nick tugs fiercely on Harry's hand. He needs him to understand this. "No, it’ll be so much worse for them, trust me, if they find out you didn’t tell them. Let them help. That's something you can do for them. If it was me ... and I just kept quiet ... my sister would genuinely kill me.”

“What - she’d bring you back to kill you again if you died without telling her?” Harry smiles, casting a quick glance at Nick. “That sounds just like Gemma, too.”

The car revs behind them, beeps twice, and Nick flinches and tightens his grip on Harry's hand. But then it just swerves around them. Someone shouts “Whoot! Whoot!” out the driver window, and then from the other side a girl hangs out, yelling - “Albert Square! Twelve o’clock! Yeah?! FUCK Section 28!!”

She clenches her fist and punches the air before she gets pulled back inside the car.

Harry starts laughing.

Nick exhales. Loosens his grip on Harry’s hand but keeps holding it.

“I think,” Harry says, “it’s important, that protest... for so long I ... I was so confused and ... ashamed of what I was feeling ... Nobody talked about this stuff with me … And ... you know that pub you brought me to? There were the health warnings, on the toilet doors? What’s dangerous, what’s not? There was nothing like that in the places I went to, you know? ... I just think it would be better if, if people talked more... Don’t you?”

They’re rounding the bend at the end of the lane. The rave-goers are tottering all around - little straggling groups all meandering back to their cars and vans. Beyond the hawthorn bushes is Harry’s car and, hopefully, Pixie and the rest of the gang are there too, ready to go home. Nick’s ready to go home. 

They walk through the thicket of bushes and Harry takes out his car key, pushes it into the driver-side door lock. Nick’s vaguely conscious that there’s a lot of people around suddenly, and then he feels Harry’s hand jerked free from his.

Two bobbies, uniformed and helmeted, are rounding up on Harry, peering sharply into his face. 

Before he can stop himself, Nick steps two paces back, his heart pounding. For a wild, panicky moment, he's convinced they know what he did with Harry, that they know Harry's not twenty-one yet, that they've come to punish Nick for corrupting a minor.

But, a second later, Nick realises their focus is all on Harry. They haven't even glanced at Nick.

“Do you intend to drive this vehicle, sir?” The dark haired woman is asking Harry, eyes narrowed. “Do you claim to be the registered owner?”

“Uh yes? Well …” Harry is gaping at their faces, trying to smile at them, but it looks a bit insincere. “I mean - I’ve borrowed it? It belongs to my grandmother really … but I just -”

“This car has been reported stolen, young man,” the male police officer says then, stepping forward so Harry’s forced to back up against the car. He’s extremely tall and thin. Harry peers up at him, that forced, nervous smile still on his face. “So, you’ll need to accompany us to the station, I think.”

“Oh but … it’s fine I’m sure. She must know it’s just me …” Harry says, palms held upright, looking from one police officer to the other. “I drive it all the time …”

“I assure you, it is not fine,” the policeman tells him sternly, “taking advantage of elderly relatives is something that is not one bit fine, young man. Stealing a little old lady’s car just to indulge in this kind of carousing is not one bit fine, I assure you." 

Harry swallows tightly. "I ..." 

"You’ll come with us now," the policeman takes a firm hold of Harry's elbow. "Don’t make a fuss.”

Harry inhales sharply, looks around at Nick, his eyes wide.

Then he turns back to the policeman.

“Did my grandmother … did she say anything about the animals?”

The man frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Did she,” Harry insists, eyes unblinkingly focused on the policeman’s, “ask you to find the animals I took too? I brought our dog. And a chicken? Did she ask about them?”

The policeman looks to his partner. She widens her eyes at him, shrugging slightly.

“Why don’t you tell us about that back at the station,” he says, gesturing towards the police-car Nick can see now is parked just beyond the hedgerow.

“Nick …” Harry faces him, his expression a breathless appeal, “do you think you might be able to look after them for me? Do you think you could?”

Nick nods. What’s another one or two, really? Nick can do this. For Harry.

“I will, Harry, don’t worry about it. I’ll take good care of them.”

Harry smiles at Nick, nods to himself in a short, satisfied way.

“I knew, even before I met you, I knew you’d be like this. I knew you’d be kind like this.” Harry tells him.

Nick feels heat rush to his face, "Lots of people will help you, Harry, if you ask them."

Harry blinks once at him. Then turns back to the policeman and takes a deep, resolute, breath.

“OK, officer,” he says. He cups his hands together to offer up his wrists, stepping closer and batting his eyelashes up at the man's stern face. “I’m ready. I surrender. You can arrest me. Go ahead - cuff me up now.”

The policeman freezes, looks all flustered suddenly. He takes a step back away from Harry. “You’re not … that’s not …” 

“OK!” the policewoman marches forward suddenly, her cheeks bright pink as Harry turns to her, smirking. “Let’s be ‘aving you.”

And with a deft enthusiasm that frankly unnerves Nick, she clips handcuffs onto Harry’s wrists and grins down into her collar when Harry peers unblinkingly into her face, biting his lip, his eyes agleam.

They lead him to the policecar and bundle him inside. 

"Call your Mum, Harry!" Nick calls, as they shut the door on him, "Tell her you need her."

Harry smiles out the window at Nick after the door slams. He holds up his handcuffed hands to Nick, waggling his fingers in an attempt at a wave. He looks so thrilled about it all that Nick splutters and folds over his knees in laughter.

When Nick looks up again, the police car is pulling away, and Harry’s grinning back at him through the window. A ghost of condensation from Harry’s laughter clouds the glass in front of his face, and then the car revs up, and it drives off round the bend in the lane, disappears.

  
  
  


Nick feels a hand drop on his shoulder.

He turns to find his friends standing there, looking disheveled and wrung out and really, quite beautiful.

“Um, that was dramatic,” Aimee says blearily. She’s got a smouldering joint between her lips and two more, unlit, in each hand. Nick’s not quite sure where she must have been standing when the police were around, but he’s honestly impressed right now.

She waves one of the joints in his general direction. 

“Here,” she says, “helps with the come down.”

“I’m down.” Nick tells her. “Already here. Right down, rock solid down, feet to the floor. Couldn’t get any more down even if I was James Brown. And no I did not intend that to rhyme but that was genius, wasn’t it?”

It seems a bit empty here, now Harry’s gone. But he thinks he’s OK. It’ll be OK. For some reason, he doesn't feel quite so afraid as he did before. He thinks, actually, that he feels a spark of something new start to blaze inside him.

“Let’s go home,” Pixie’s pulling Stu up from where he’s sprawled against the grass at her feet, making shapes with his hands while the rest of his body’s prone. “Baz is here with his van, we can cadge a lift with him. Think I heard something about a new band at the New Union tonight. Should be home in time for a shower and Maccy-Ds.”

“Got the march though,” Nick tells her, as she grabs his hand. “We’re changing the world today, remember?”

“We'll get it sorted,” Aimee slurs, flinging herself against Nick’s back and kissing his neck. “It’s alllll sorted.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Tuesday, February 20th 2018**

There was a part of Nick that honestly thought he’d run into Harry at the protest that day. That they’d bump into each other and laugh about it all, him getting arrested, and Nick being appointed a keeper of chickens. He’d half-expected to be bringing Harry home for another chip tea, their dogs at their feet, while Nick’s friends snored in a blanket nests in the living room.

But when Nick stepped off the bus in Manchester city centre on that grey February Saturday, and realised just how big this thing was…

Twenty thousand people is a lot. 

Twenty thousand pairs of feet on the move, placards and banners high, chants rippling through the crowd like battle-cries...

The Communards played and Ian McKellan spoke, and Sue Johnston off Brookside, and lots of boring politicians but Nick’s heart had beat fast the whole time, despite his jittery exhaustion. He’d scanned the crowd endlessly. But no matter how much he searched, the face he most wanted to see just wasn’t there.

When the legislation ended up getting pushed through by the Tory government a couple of months later, despite it all, despite the huge fight, Nick’s heart-rate stayed steady. Because from that day, he had quietly resolved that didn’t matter who tried to shut him up, he wasn’t ever going underground.

KFM managed to get a license and he was suddenly a legit radio DJ, with a regular income and a sudden pressure to only play music from that week’s power rotation. But right from the start, he never hid who he was, joked along with the listeners about who he fancied and his perpetual singledom, mixed it in with his stories about all the other parts of his life - friends, holidays, hangovers. Some battles are fought without firing a single shot. 

There was always an element of backlash - the odd nasty comment phoned in to the switchboard. Occasionally the station managers would remind him of the importance of keeping the advertisers happy. But he’d think of the kids out there, in their bedrooms, or out walking with headphones on their ears, swaddling themselves in the warmth of a radio presenter's voice, how he might just be helping someone feel not quite so alone.

The BBC came calling and his slots gradually crept up earlier and earlier in the timetable. It meant things had to change - earlier bedtimes, exercise, he learned to cook, only visited nightclubs for work or special occasions. He didn’t mind. That whole Madchester scene flared up and exploded too fast, like a roman candle. And then the louche arrogance of those days were kicked aside to make way for the preppy aggression of Britpop and there was a whole new scene for people to believe was on the brink of changing everything.

And maybe, so slowly it was barely perceptible, they were right.

  
  
  


Henrietta had lived another three astounding years - a dignified, regal presence in Nick’s back yard, scratching for worms and keeping Pig in line.

Poor Artemesia had taken poorly only a few weeks after she’d come to stay. Nick had stroked her head while she snuffled her last quiet breaths after the vet’s injection. He thinks she was happy with him, for that last while. He let her collect all the pine cones she wanted from the park.

He got a new puppy, after that, because Pig seemed a bit lonely without a friend. They all made a good team.

  
  
  


The staff in Manchester City Library seemed so thrilled, so grateful, when he agreed to open this 30th anniversary exhibition to commemorate the "Never Going Underground" Section 28 protest march. Nick feels a bit embarrassed really. He’d not done much, after all, that day. He’s got a lurking suspicion he’s about to be a let-down to whoever invited him to play the role of _veteran gay activist_ , but he’s determined to do his best for them. So he’s arrived on time, for once, cut the ribbon in front of the photographs, said a few words, got a few laughs.

After he’s done all his duties, the organisers give him a few minutes to have a look at the exhibit. He’s wandering through, remembering, when he sees a tall, lean figure in a perfectly tailored suit, standing alone at the end of the room. 

And his heart, so steady for all these years, starts to pound.

The man turns to him, slowly, and that smile Nick’s never forgotten spreads wide over his face - all eyes and dimples.

He meanders up to Nick, grinning the whole time.

“Hello,” he says then, all casual and easy, like years gone by aren’t battalions ranged out between them.

“Hiya,” Nick manages to say. And then, because he has to be sure, he reaches out and puts his hand on Harry’s chest, over his heart. 

He’s real, all right - solid, warm. His heartbeat is a butterfly's wings under Nick's fingertips. He actually smells pretty fucking good too - something fragrant and definitely expensive. His tanned skin is slightly more weathered looking, there are deep lines between his brows and at the sides of his mouth, but he hasn’t changed much at all really. He’s still beautiful. He’s still wearing suits that look like they cost more than Nick’s mortgage.

Nick’s hand drifts up and he cups Harry’s shoulder, at the nape of his neck. He gives him a little shake.

“You little bugger!”

Harry barks a loud laugh that makes everyone around look over.

“I heard you on the radio the other day, saying you'd be here,” Harry says. His deep, slow voice triggering a million memories. The accent is changed to something vaguely neutral, but there are still hints of the north of England in his long vowels. “I was in the car from the airport - back for my niece's sixteenth birthday. But when I heard ... I thought I’d come. I wasn’t sure if you’d remember me.”

“How could I forget you, Harry?” Nick says, shaking his head at him in disbelief. “Left me with your bloody animals, didn’t you? Like some kind of knocked-up bride who’s husband’s gone off to war!”

Harry laughs again, his eyes squinting shut.

It’s the same feeling - making him laugh. Nick wants to keep doing it.

“Where have you been all this time, Harry Styles?” Nick asks, marvelling at him.

“Living in L.A. mostly,” Harry tells him. “My Mum brought me over, back then, after I met you. She got me into a new treatment programme there. Well - it was new at the time, I suppose. It’s pretty standard now. I was lucky. The timing was right. I’ve always been lucky, I think.”

“It was …” he dips his eyes away from Nick, “it was rough for a while, for a few years... I’m sorry I never got in touch.”

“But you’re well? You’re OK?” Nick is gawping at him still, he knows. But he can’t seem to stop.

“Yeah,” Harry’s smiling again, “well, the sciatica’s a bitch sometimes, but yeah. Yeah. I’m good. And you?”

“I’m good. I’m … I’m dead good. I got, I got married,” Nick says, thumbing over his shoulder. He still can’t say it without sound surprised by the fact of it.

Harry’s eyebrows rise and lifts on his toes to peer over Nick’s shoulder at where Elgar’s chatting with the head librarian beside the drinks table. 

He looks back at Nick and makes a funny face - his lips forming an impressed "ooooh!" shape, and then he’s grinning again. “Congratulations.”

Nick laughs. And Harry does too, suddenly spluttering beside Nick. And they just laugh, eyes bright and fixed on each other. They laugh and Nick knows their laughter is their salvo of defiance, their tribute to the fallen, their bellow of victory.

Elgar comes and throws his arm over Nick’s shoulder, “Hello, what’s this then?”

“Harry, this is Elgar,” Nick manages to say, swiping at his eyes, “Elgar - this is Harry - he’s been pining in unrequited love for me for about thirty years now.”

Elgar rolls his eyes and holds his hand out to Harry. “Nice to meet you. Do you know Nick well, or do I need to start apologising for the rubbish he comes out with?”

Harry laughs again. 

“We met back then ...” Harry explains, nodding at the photos, “Nick was kind to me. When I needed a friend.”

Elgar glances at the photos on the wall. “It was a dark time for our community, wasn't it?” he frowns.

“It were dead brilliant as well though, weren’t it?” Nick points out. “We had a right laugh, too.”

Elgar grips the back of Nick’s neck, gives it a bit of a squeeze. It still makes Nick’s knees weaken when he does things like that. He did alright with this one, didn’t he?

“Did you enjoy the exhibition?” Elgar is politely asking Harry, “Did it bring it all back?”

“Yeah,” Harry smiles. “It brought it all back. And, now," Harry's eyes drift over Elgar's hand against Nick's neck, "I guess it's best to let it all go again.”

Elgar looks a bit puzzled.

“How about a drink somewhere, then?” Elgar says, in a clear attempt to steer the subject to something he can follow. “You two can catch up.”

“Oh, I can't. I’m actually leaving for the States again in the morning. Back to my life,” Harry says apologetically. “I have to drive back to London tonight.”

“What time is your flight?” Nick asks. 

Harry cackles, “Are you trying to lead me astray again? I ended up in a police station last time, remember? No. I really have to go. I’ll be listening, though, in the morning. Play me a song, how about?”

Nick nods, holds out his arms to Harry, who sweeps in instantly, wrapping him up in a bear hug. Harry feels so warm and so solid against Nick, his arms around him so, so strong.

“I’ll play you a song.”

He feels Harry press a brief, hot kiss to his cheek and then Harry whispers - “Thank you. Thank you for what you did.” - into his ear.

He pulls away, smiling at Elgar. He reaches back to give Nick’s arm one last squeeze and then he leaves.

 _I’ll play you a song. I’ve got a whole mix-tape of songs for you, Harry Styles_ , Nick thinks as he watches him walk through the door.

And before he disappears, Harry looks over his shoulder, smiles, and waves goodbye.

>>>>

  
  
  
  
  


**Harry’s Mix Tape**

Small Town Boy - Bronski Beat  
West End Girls - Pet Shop Boys  
Blue Monday - New Order  
Fools Gold - The Stone Roses  
Just Like Honey - Jesus and Mary Chain  
How Soon Is Now - The Smiths  
I Want To Be Adored - The Stone Roses  
Every Day Is Like Sunday - The Smiths  
Running Up That Hill - Kate Bush  
Cloudbursting - Kate Bush  
Going Underground - The Jam  
Gypsy - Fleetwood Mac

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you are still here - thank you for reading! 
> 
> I would have finished this fic a lot faster if I hadn't got completely lost in researching what turned out to be a really interesting period of recent British history! If anyone would like to know more about any of the things referenced here:
> 
> "Section 28/Clause 28" was a Tory government (boo!) backlash to the AIDs crisis where they attempted to make it illegal for local government agencies to "promote homosexuality" i.e. effectively banning funding for local LGBT support groups, education in schools, health promotion initiatives in the gay community. Unbelievably - it was 2003 before the legislation was overturned.  
> [Here's an article about the Manchester protest.](https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/thirty-years-ago-manchester-held-14306077)  
>   
> A little info about UK attitudes surrounding AIDs in the 1980s: [HERE](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/4348096.stm)  
> And here's the infamous TV ad that ran at the time, just to give you a sense of the atmosphere of terror.  
> [Click here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SqRNUUOk7s)  
>   
> This fic finishes just as whole "Madchester"/"Hacienda" scene is about to kick off. It sounds like it was an utterly mental and exciting time - Manchester was just throbbing with creative energy, rebellion, swagger and a shit-ton of drugs! What little brats they were!  
> [Some thoughts from the main people here.](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/apr/21/madchester-manchester-interviews-hook-ryder)
> 
> And in the unlikely scenario that you are interested in seeing how sweaty and dirty it all was -  
> [Some photos](https://www.theguardian.com/music/gallery/2012/apr/22/madchester-hacienda-stone-roses-happy-mondays)
> 
>  I really loved this music theme and I hope that if you aren't already familiar with some of the tunes from that period you'll go check them out because they are amazing! 
> 
> Finally - a very huuuuuge thank you to the truly lovely Writcraft for organising this brilliant festival!


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